Here are the final stanzas of the poem "From Plains to Pass". Previous posts contain the first half of the poem and should be read first.
Weather
The sun blazed in a white, hot sky.
The snow melted, and the plains dried.
Tongues of beasts, hung in the humid air,
Grasses and plants, shriveled in despair.
Even the hardiest, deep-rooted trees,
Bowed their branches and dipped their leaves.
All living things prayed, in their own way,
For rain to soften and sweep away
The heat that rose from the great plains
Quenching the land with gentle rains.
Great, billowing clouds began to swirl,
As the tallest structures in the world
Formed against the mountain's base,
Holding them in deep embrace.
They swelled and billowed, hard and soft,
They grew to meet the winds aloft.
Rumbling over the thirsting plain,
Lightening crackled, thunder refrained.
Rain, in gusty, layered sheets fell,
And broke the parched and thirsty spell.
Briefly now, all lifted up their voice,
A gurgling choir, singing in rejoice,
For answered prayers and needless fears.
But, darkly 'neath the heartfelt cheers,
Like the light of a distant star,
Glimmering faintly from afar,
Was the fear, that the gift, would be the bane,
That life, as well as death, would come with rain.
Tree branches drooped with sodden leaves,
Animals hid ‘neath the mountain's eaves.
Now transformed to something new
The sky blackened, the wind blew,
Violent funnels, sucked at the earth,
As though the sky was giving birth
In breech of all that went before.
The sky puked fear at the winds roar,
Shredding trees, unimpeded its course,
A random, dark and sinister force.
Exhausted, its violent rampage spent,
The clouds lifted at the sun's accent.
Beaten grass and trembling trees,
Bison, birds, and honeybees,
Emerged from shelters dark and bleak.
From glistening plain to mountain peak,
They gorged and grazed, on bounty sent
By dark and violent storms, now spent.
Fire
Smoldering deep, in the path
Of the storm's receding wrath,
The fiery spit of the dying storm
Lay deeply hidden, now glowing warm.
In the carcass of a storm-felled oak,
Now arose, a wispy thread of smoke
Un-remarked by all but the breeze
That played upon it, as if to tease
A spark, lying in the humbled tree,
Kissing its fiber with joyful glee.
Inflaming the spirit that once stood
On the plain, bereft of living wood.
Energy, gleaned from the sun,
In fiber stored was undone,
A tiny flame illumed the dark,
And licked the tree, from soul to bark.
A warning crackled in the grass,
To other trees, from plain to pass.
Animals sniffed the fearful scent,
Knowing, instantly, what it meant.
As fire leapt from tree to tree
All that could, began to flee
From the angry fire's embrace.
Birds abandoned their nesting place
And flew, through a smoke-filled sky,
Feathers singed, they screeched and cried.
Wings now beat, in panicked desperation,
Away from the snarling conflagration.
A thousand miles, the fire spanned,
Charring the once verdant strand,
Finally checked at the river's shore,
Where the fire now found nothing more
Than water, sand, and mud to eat,
Sizzling, it waned, and lost its heat.
Leaving in its blackened wake,
An ashen sea, a smoking lake,
On which the gentle rains fell,
Weeping ore this steaming hell.
The Land
The land looked smoky, barren, abused,
From mountain to river, black and bruised.
Nothing stirred on the wretched plain,
A black vista, an awful stain.
But all was not what it seemed,
Where soil cracked, and embers steamed.
Among smoldering grasses and weeds
Lay the sperm of God, in little seeds,
Thirsting in the parched and blackened crust,
Sucking at the ashen brew with lust.
Pregnant with life, seeking the sun,
Billions of seeds now burst as one
Through the scarred and fractured band,
Now, a greening meadowland.
Grasses, and flowers of every hue,
Blanketed the plain, and drank the dew,
And all, that once seemed beyond repair,
Greenly glistened in the crystal air.
Creatures, exhausted and forlorn,
Sniffed the hope, and were soon reborn.
Scorched trees on the mountainside,
Shedding their cones as they died,
Rolling down the rough and rocky slope,
Finding rest, in a crevice of hope
Where soil and dew, in perfect parts,
Fed the seeds and stroked their hearts.
For millions of years, the cycle turned
A verdant garden grew, then it burned,
Grew again, in haughty defiance
Birth and death in a grand alliance.
Each turn of this hypnotic trance,
Each stanza of this fatal dance,
Left in its awful, searing wake,
A silt, a stew, a hearty cake
Layer on layer, eons and more,
Layers thickening on the mountain's shore.
The richest land on this tiny sphere,
In silence it grew, with none to hear.
Man
A silence, shattered one starless night
By a distant foot fall soft as light.
It quaked the mountain, and shook the plain,
It stilled the thunder, and stopped the rain.
At first, it stepped light on the land,
Leaving ghostly trails in the sand.
A creation, unlike those before,
Of the ancient mountains living lore,
Found shelter beneath towers unknown
Created tools from its flinty stone.
For ten thousand years, they roamed
The vast plains and mountains domed
By clouds, whispering on the winds
Across a sky, that never ends.
Feasting on the bounty of the land,
It clothed and fed each wandering band.
They climbed its glistening spires
Buried their dead, in flaming pyres.
Dark valley’s, jagged ravines,
None escaped or went unseen.
They loved and warred, lived and died,
Sun-danced at the great divide.
The bounty of the plains lay at their feet,
An abundant source from which all could eat.
Cherokee, Creek and Comanche,
Sioux, Arikara, Apache,
Blackfoot, Arapaho, Chippewa,
Mandan’s, Cheyenne, and the Chickasaw,
Are but a few of the tribes that roamed
Fertile plains and valleys they called home.
Each, with a history, danced in smoke,
Never written, it was only spoke
In chants, of deeds and magic unknown,
Of life beneath the mountains of stone
Animals
Vast herds of bison thundered through,
Dreams, and dust, and the morning dew.
Flocks of pigeons, ducks and geese,
White on blue, the sky and fleece.
Carnivores, powerful and lean,
Bears, cougars, and the wolverine,
Feasted on this great groaning board
Laid on a vast and verdant sward.
Wolves prowled, on the edge of light,
Howled throughout the awful night.
Rabbits, mice, and prairie dogs,
Fish and snakes, and little frogs,
Were spotted and marked from on high,
By raptors, in a cloudless sky,
Crowning the mountain's lofty crest.
All of the animals were blessed,
Except for one, that now was damned
By a man in a far off land,
Ten thousand miles across the sea,
In a land of wine and creamy Brie.
A tailor, in Paris, comfortable and fat,
Turned the skin of a beaver into a hat.
Each pass of the needle through the hide,
Part of the wilderness screamed and died.
Westward! Now went the deathly call,
A wave of terror, a violent squall,
Fueled by vanity and nothing more,
It covered the east, but needed more.
All eyes, turned toward the fertile plain
Where beavers damned the mountain's drain,
Thrived, in abundance only dreamed.
“Look to the West” new fashion screamed.
Mountain Men
Ponies stopped and sniffed the air,
As did fox and grizzly bear.
Noses twitched, sucking at the breeze,
Sorting smells while trying to seize
A new scent upon the east wind,
A scent unknown to those who'd been
To the edges of the sky,
Something new, went out the cry.
Tribes, who knew all other tribes,
Signals sent, the smoky scribes.
Confusion and fear roamed the land
All who could, the horizon scanned.
It was at once, less and more than feared,
A white-skinned man with a flowing beard,
Who brought new things never known
To the plains where red men roam.
Steel pots, knives, and shiny beads,
Blankets, whiskey, widow's weeds.
Fire-sticks, needles, mirrors, and more,
Guns and illness unseen before
Like magnets, drew the wary bands
From piney bluffs to desert sands.
For bounty undreamed, exchanged
Access to their fruitful range.
First, there were but a few who came
To hunt upon the fertile plain.
Quiet men who came to trap and trade,
To hunt and live in the mountain's shade.
They filled canoes, and burdened mares
With pelts, trapped or traded for wares.
They lived among the wondering clans
And learned the secrets of their lands.
As different as they could be,
At first, they lived in harmony.
They danced and sang 'round smoky fires,
Each fulfilling each one's desires.
Eastward, beyond the mighty plain,
Tales were told of the tribe’s domain,
And the mountain men, who lived and died
In the darkness at the great divide.
Young men dreamed of histories told
At night in cabins dank and cold,
Of savage beauties, writhing in the dark
Lit only by the moon's low hanging arc.
Fields unplowed, they dropped their reigns,
Headed for the storied plains.
Migration
Like distant thunder from hidden clouds,
The tribes knew not of the eastern crowds.
Small groups gathered, at church and store,
To hear news of the famous Corps.
"All return safe! None died!”
The Eastern papers cried.
Sparks of wonder buried deep,
Lighted dreams of those asleep.
It was fear versus desire
That dampened this growing fire
And held it closely, but firmly apart,
A dream unacted upon, in the heart.
Now, once again an unseen force
Came to bear on history's course,
And the fear that had constrained desire,
Shrank in the heat of a distant fire.
Tambora, on the far side of the Earth,
Blistered and bubbled and soon it gave birth
To a summer that never came,
To ice and snow, instead of rain.
In July it snowed in the East
Freezing the corn meant for the feast.
Seeds planted carefully in rows
Tried to grow but instead they froze.
White men in the East cried frozen tears
Desire to live now defeated fears.
Led by beaver that had long disappeared,
Followed by a man with a flowing beard,
In whose tracks a turbulent sea
Flowed east to west humanity.
For 10,000 years they lived and died,
Those little bands on the mountain's side,
Swept now by things severe and grand,
Fearsome things they could not withstand.
By people, fleeing a distant force,
Preaching compassion, without remorse.
Watching over this ebb and flow,
Towering mountains capped with snow.
Pedestals under a crystal sky
Never wondering or asking why.
Immune from the tremors of man,
An instant in time's mighty span.
Witnessed by spire and plain,
Feeble cries, a minor pain,
Arrogance unremarked by stone,
A false grandeur to dust from bone.
All ending in the fertile ground
Where all, but God, are finally bound.
No comments:
Post a Comment